


Mortal

by Twyd



Series: Anew [3]
Category: The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy Series
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Childhood, Childhood Memories, Coming of Age, Confusion, Denial, Developing Relationship, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Gods, Growing Up, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Conflict, Jealousy, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Morally Ambiguous Character, Pre-Slash, Slash, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 12:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17407205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: Alex's guilt spirals, along with his affection for Imhotep.





	Mortal

He steps out of Imhotep’s arms and returns to his tent. The need, the urge, to die no longer had so strong a hold on him. He will stay with them for now, and if he feels the same way again, well...death will always be waiting for him.

As they travel, however, he finds himself bonding with Imhotep’s men. As they are no longer all cultists, but archeologists and egyptologists from all walks of life, they get on reasonably well with Alex and do not look down on him for his age, and do not ask questions about his relationship with Imhotep. As he works with these people and discovers more about the ancient world, and London and Cambridge feel more and more like bad dreams he once had.  

As for Imhotep himself, Alex tends to only see him in the evening by the fire,  where they will talk in low voices about what lay ahead. 

There were times in his youth, Alex remembers, after the first pain of his grief became more of an ache, where he would barely see Imhotep at all. The priest would intervene when Alex was sick, sulking or overly disruptive, but otherwise left him alone. At the time, Alex had thought it had been because Imhotep was evil and was off doing evil things, but in hindsight he realises the man had probably been grieving himself, for Anck Su Namun. It had been a lonely childhood.

Alex’s main relationships had been with his three succeeding tutors (they could never hack the travel and the lifestyle for more than a few years, however much money or gold Imhotep offered them), with the few men that shared his interest in Egypt and intellect and who didn’t hate children, and of course his ongoing love/hate relationship with Lock-Nah. Other than seeing to his education, his food, and that Lock-Nah does not get too rough, Imhotep mostly ignored him. He passed a hand through Alex’s hair when he saw him, in a way that could be absent-minded or mocking or perhaps even genuinely fond.

And these days, by the fire, Imhotep seems to be watching him, but he does not touch Alex against his will. He does not touch him at all. Sometimes, when they stay up late, pouring over books and maps by the glow of the fire, Alex thinks there will be a hand on his thigh, or lips to the back of his neck, but nothing comes, and he doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or not. 

Alex’s days are pleasant, but his nights are restless. He tries to tire himself out in the day, volunteering to see to the camels or the other things no-one else wants to do, pushes himself past his strength, but he still struggles to sleep at night. He is plagued with memories and guilt. Being kept here as a child was one thing, but now he has returned of his own will, he is helping Imhotep, and he is content. How can he not hate himself?

After their latest hike through the desert, the latest tomb is familiar. It is so familiar, Alex thinks at first that Imhotep must have brought him here as a child, in the early days when he was still grieving and not paying attention to his surroundings, but then he sees Imhotep and Lock-Nah frowning over the maps: this place is clearly unfamiliar to them.

He had always been a good navigator even as a child, when Imhotep would half mockingly, half fondly call him his ‘little guide’ in Egyptian.

Drifting through the tomb entrance, Alex remembers an old life. A rich land and shining gold temples before they grew worn with age, feasts and prayers, intricately designed tombs, how their passages worked and what lay within them. He is almost happy. 

He blinks as he comes back to himself. He is a 21 year old man in present day Egypt. The chamber is worn and cold and covered in dust and cobwebs. Perhaps he is going mad. 

Imhotep and the others are at the far end of the dark tomb, murmuring over the door that refuses to be opened. It is a fake door, but they do not know this. Alex slips away to the other end of the chamber. He ghosts his hand over the wall until he feels it, the old, barely perceptible imprints of a hand, just large enough to accommodate his own. Trance-like, he slides his own hand into the imprint.

The Earth shakes. Alex jolts back like he’d been struck, as the ceiling crumbles dust around them. The others also whirl round, and Lock-Nah spots him in his lone corner.

“What have you done now?” he snaps, like Alex is still 8 years old. 

“Wait,” Imhotep tells him, holding up a hand. 

The dust clears. Slowly, as the shakes ebb away, the walls begin to part, revealing a chamber not much larger than a closet, decorated with hieroglyphics and little else. A small pillar stands in the centre of the room, holding a chest the size of a jewellery box aloft. 

The men stare at it, and then stare at him. Alex shifts uncomfortably under their gaze.

“How did you know?” Imhotep asks, an unreadable expression on his face.

“...luck.”

To his relief, Imhotep does not press him further than this. He steps into the small chamber, and opens the box with ease.

Alex waits for one of the others to prompt Imhotep when he goes still and silent. When no-one does, he calls out himself,

“What is it?”

“Come and see,” Imhotep replies without turning round. 

Alex looks round at the others uneasily, catching Lock-Nah’s eye, but the other man is as impassive as usual. Alex steps into the chamber himself. He sucks in a breath as he is hit with something - familiarity, sadness, longing, and almost wants to step back with the weight of it. He goes forward instead, approaching Imhotep’s side on unsteady feet. 

A ring rests in the golden bronze box, a lapis lazuli stone with a gold band. The hieroglphs inside the box are not easy to decipher. 

“Little guide,” Imhotep murmurs, too quietly for the others to hear.

“What’s that?” Alex says, jarred out of his reverie.

“Can’t you read it?” he says, smiling.

“Actually, I can’t. I’m still trying to suss out the direction they face, and I can’t recognise half the characters. Either this person had very bad hand-writing, or -”

“This is not the first time you helped us find something,” Imhotep intervenes softly. “Do you not remember?”

“Yes. And it was a bit hit and miss, as I recall. After the bracelet, that is.”

Imhotep has still not taken his eyes off the box. He runs a hand over the rim.

“I believe this is who you were. Who you are.”

Alex has to repress a little shiver of delight, even as he shakes his head.

Imhotep is poker-faced. The boy had lived after him, but not long after. If he hadn’t fallen in with Anck-Su-Namun, they may have met. In fact, they would almost definitely met, for this guide and scribe was clearly of high ranking. He hears the men start to shift behind them, and is reluctantly brought back to the present.

“It would fit you,” he says of the ring.

“No way,” Alex says at once. “Not after what happened last time I tried on some old jewellery.”

Imhotep smiles. “This is different. There is no curse.”

“All the same, I’d rather not chance it, thanks.”

Imhotep chuckles.

He closes the chest, and Alex feels as if something inside himself locks itself up with it

-

He was hoping this small adventure in triumph would ease him into a weary sleep, but his  strange thoughts and memories in the night continue.

He remembers one hot morning of his youth, under Lock-Nah’s guard, watching through his eyelids as the guard undressed, remembers burning with shame and arousal as he grew hard, imagining that huge prick engorged and erect. He had stayed silent, squirming inside, until Lock-Nah finally, finally left the tent and Alex was able to take care of himself. 

Not long after this, Imhotep fortunately declared Alex to be getting old enough to need privacy, and was given his own tent. 

Around this time of his life, the others would sometimes take Alex along to festivals, to street parties, where they would find women. Alex would have had no trouble with this, as the locals were intrigued by his fair skin and his blue eyes, but Alex could never bring himself to go through with it. One of his tutors had even wanted to take him to a brothel to ‘learn the ways of women,’ but Imhotep had been against it, to Alex’s private relief. Whenever the others took him out with them, he would slink off to the nearest library or coffee shop when no-one was looking, and the others would assume he was with a woman when they missed him, if they missed him. 

While the others thought he was exploring his sexuality in real life, Alex would learn what he could in the libraries, and not all of it about women. He would hide his material in the spine of other books. He couldn’t check them out of the library and risk one of the others finding out, even though he hated the libraries; they are dirty and messy and disordered, and the others often stared at him due to his age and his skin. 

One night he hears Imhotep asking Lock Nah where he goes by himself, hears Lock-Nah tell him about the women and smiles at the irony of it all. 

He remembers the visions Imhotep used to show him, remembers being in a rich chamber of old, marvelling at himself in a mirror, the gold paint adorning his skin, the blue jewels matching his eyes, the silk hair of his wig that feels heavier and more real than his own, while Imhotep watches him in amusement. Perhaps it had been a dream, but Alex doesn’t like to ask.

And then he has another dream, further back this time. Six months or so since his family’s death, long enough to sink into some reluctant routine. He travels with Imhotep’s entourage, eats their food, occasionally plays with other children as they pass through villages, nods off on his camel in the hot sun, naps out the most unbearable parts of the day, wraps up by the fire in the desert nights, watching the stars for as long as he could stand the cold, living for every dig, every new tomb to be explored. He vows to remain stubborn, to do only the bare minimum with his tutor and to hinder their journeys while looking for a chance to run.

He remembers getting lost in one of the tombs. He had bent down to examine a carving, letting the rest of them go ahead, vaguely aware of their murmurs and the light of their flames. He had then stood and reluctantly dragged himself away, only to find himself confronted with a room of at least ten different corridors. He can’t hear them now, or make out any trace of their light.

“Hello?” he calls, holding his own flame higher. His voice echoes back at him mockingly mockingly.

He holds his flame near the floor, but it is hard and has no trace of footsteps. How long would he been down here? Maybe they wouldn’t even miss him. And if they did, they might not bother looking for him. Just that morning he’d accidentally knocked over something valuable, and it had angered Lock-Nah enough to throw something and scare the camels. The others had not defended him, nd would convince Imhotep to abandon, he’s sure of this. Perhaps his luck had finally run out.

He runs halfway down a couple of corridors, shouting for them, as panic rises in his throat. He knows how old these tombs are, how long their corridors are. If he gets lost- 

“Imhotep!” he yells. “Lock-Nah! Hey! I’m back here!”

He picks another corridor and random and runs.

And smacks into Imhotep.

“Alex,” the former mummy tuts, steadying him before he falls. “You are trying my patience today, little one.”

Alex ignores the remark: he is so pathetically relieved he could almost hug him. 

“I only stopped for a second!” he protests, as the man bends to pick up his dropped flame and hand it back to him. “I was shouting you!”

“Sound does not travel well down here,” Imhotep says, pushing Alex in front of him and guiding him by the shoulders. A little tousle of his hair shows he is forgiven. “Tell someone next time you decide to stop. Or I fear we will have to find a collar for you rather like your old bracelet.”

It is that night he gets sick, the only time he remembers being seriously ill under Imhotep’s care, although the man never used more than herbs and oils as remedies.

He goes from hot to freezing cold, shaking with it, unable to eat and sleep. And then the scarabs come. He feels them all over the bed and the tent walls, inside his clothes, burrowing into his skin, trying to thrash with his remaining strength while Imhotep smooths back his hair, his voice gentle.

“You’re hallucinating. You’re very ill.”

Imhotep stays with him as he quietens, the fever passes and he slowly recovers. He comes back to himself, sees for himself that there are no scarabs, there never were.

Alex remembers recovering, drifting in and out of sleep as he grew stronger. He opened his eyes one night, expecting to find Imhotep either reading or watching him, but the tent is empty. He scrabbles for the lamp to be sure, confirming his suspicions. It is impossibly quiet. His insides turn to ice then as he realises they may have left him. He can imagine Lock Nah’s voice encouraging his Lord…”the boy is of no use to us. He is wasting time and resources.” Alex scrabbles to his feet, weak and dizzy, and pushes out of the tent, expecting to find nothing but sand and silence, but their camp still surrounds him, silent with sleep. He is so relieved his balance wobbles. There is a fire a short distance from his tent. Alex wraps his blanket around himself more firmly and stumbles towards it.

Lock-Nah and Imhotep are sat over it, speaking quietly. They look at him like a wild animal has approached.

“You should be in bed,” Imhotep admonishes, sounding so like his mother that Alex wants to laugh, and then wants to cry instead. His unused legs wobble, and Imhotep reaches out and draws him to sit by the fire.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he says.

His heart is thudding. He still cannot quite believe that they haven’t abandoned him. He closes his eyes as they resume their talk, soothed by the warmth of the fire and the hand in his hair. 

It is still night when he wakes, still silent. He is vaguely aware of being carried. 

“Where is everyone?” he mumbles into the carrier’s chest.

“Asleep, as you should be.” 

“But it’s so quiet.”

“Yes. It is the middle of the night.” Imhotep sounds amused. 

“I thought you left.”

“No, little one. I told you I will not abandon you, and I will not.”

-

Why does he have these dreams? Every damn night. He is awake now in a cold sweat, uneasy, and goes outside. Imhotep is alone by the fire, reading, and catches sight of Alex before he can withdraw.

“Are you all right?”

“Weird dreams,” he sighs.

He joins the other man and shuffles forward towards the flames, feeling the heat of the other man against his side.

“I remembered getting lost in that tomb and then getting a fever,” he ventures. “Amongst other things. I bet you regretted taking me in after all. Not that you saw much of me.”

Alex surprises himself with this goad, putting it down to being restless and half-asleep. Imhotep however is unperturbed.

“I did not spend too much time with you as a child because I believe it would have upset you more, and because I am not familiar with children.”

“Lock-Nah was not so familiar with children, just so you know.”

Imhotep chuckles at this. “He softened towards you over time, even if he does not show it. And if anyone else had watched over you you would have outwitted them in an hour.”

He had a point. 

He is getting used to Imhotep, getting close to him once more. He even asks him about Anck-Su-Namun.

“She was very clever, very independent, and she hated that she could never have any power for herself. Like most of the Pharoah’s consorts, she was little more than a slave. I pitied her, and grew close to her because of her intellect. She would have made a fine pharoah herself.”

_ And her body _ , Alex adds silently. She had been beautiful, Imhotep couldn’t deny that. He feels a twist of jealousy when he thinks this, even though he knows he is being ridiculous. 

The tension successfully dispelled, Alex starts digging around their belongings for another look at the ring. Much as he hates to admit it, firelight conversations with Imhotep always put him at ease. Despite keeping a significant distance away as Alex was growing up, Imhotep knows him. He knows Alex craves thrill and security in equal extremes, needing a safe space for after adventures, knows everything he could possibly know short of mind-reading.

Imhotep watches him now playing with the ring, and looks smug.

“You seem to have forgotten that it was the bracelet that was the guide, not me,” Alex reminds him. “I’m no guide.”

“I am talking about the ten years after the bracelet,” Imhotep says lazily. “And now, of course. Did you ever think about what drew you to wear the bracelet in the first place?”

“I was always playing with things I shouldn’t. I was a brat.”

Imhotep, rather unkindly, Alex thinks, does not contradict him. Instead he says,

“It is always very satisfying to be able to recall one’s past. Most never do.”

“I don’t recall anything,” Alex says, quite honestly, as he’s sure his twinges of deja vu and visions don’t count.

“Perhaps you will if you wear your ring.”

He closes his book and gets up to give Alex a little kiss on the forehead.

“Goodnight.”

Alex is left too stunned to react.

-

While Imhotep stays in the tomb with his old books, putting the souls to rest or whatever he did. Alex and Lock-Nah go into the nearest village for supplies, and to look around the market-place. This place is also familiar, but in a different way.

“Hey, look,” Alex says, spotting an old fortune teller, the very same Alex had begged Lock-Nah to take him to when he was younger in another town, who had always refused. “Remember her? She’s still here.”

“Remember her? You wouldn’t stop hounding me over her. I think I almost hit you.”

“I think you  _ did _ hit me, but I forgive you. I wonder how old she is?”

Lock-Nah snorts, uninterested.

“If you want to waste your money I’m not stopping you.”

Alex ignores him, and slips away and hovers over the old woman, feeling awkward.

“Hello again,” she says without lifting her head.

“Have we met?”

“No. But you have seen me before as a child. You wanted your fortune told.”

Alex struggles not to look impressed. They’re observant, that’s the whole point of their job.

“OK,” he says, taking a seat. He goes to reach into his pocket, but she draws his hand towards her before he gets a chance. She studies it for a long time, not looking at his face once. He almost thinks she has fallen asleep when she speaks. 

“You have been through great pain.”

Alex remains silent and poker-faced. Everyone had been through great pain at some point, so it was hardly a groundbreaking insight. 

“And the path ahead of you is not easy.” 

_ Great. _

“But you are in a good place now,” she continues. “You are where you are meant to be. Stay strong, and do not fall prey to your emotions.”

“...what do you mean?” he prompts.

“You are where you belong,” she tells him. She trails a thumb over a line in his palm, as if confirming this fact. “Yes, you are where you belong.”

And with that she releases his hand.

“That’s it?”

“That is all that is known.”

“OK,” he says, beginning to think Lock-Nah was right. “How much?”

“What you like.”

“Sorry?” he says. This was a strange scam.

“Some futures are clear, but for some, so not much can be told. So fixed price would not make sense. Pay what you like.”

He blinks at her, beginning to understand why she was living in a shack.

He digs into his pocket and gives her everything he had brought with him - discreetly, so no-one would see and come after her in the night.

“You a good man,” she says, though she barely looks at the money.  _ “Next!” _

Alex stands and gets out of the way of the next person. He doesn’t notice Lock-Nah until he all but walks into him.

“Did she tell you you’d meet a dark, handsome stranger?” he chuckles. “That you’re going on a long walk?”

“Shut up,” he says. “She’s an old lady, she needs the money.”

“How much?”

“Pay what you like.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Why, want to find a dark, handsome stranger for yourself?”

“Shut up.”

There are crowds and crowds on the way back. It is the end of Ramadan, and the celebrations are well underway in the streets.

Imhotep has permitted his men the night off. Alex stays with him because he doesn’t know what else to do with himself. 

A glowing sunset is replaced by a full moon. Gentle lyre music is played as the locals dance, sway, laugh and chatter with their companions. There is a sweet, woody smell of incense that combines with the smokiness of the fire. It is beautiful. He is watching it all with a sweet drink in hand. But he does not feel like an outsider as he had in London and Cambridge.

Imhotep comes to his side and sits beside him. They talk in quiet tones about the tombs explored, and what lies ahead. He has grown closer to Imhotep despite his attempts to remain aloof, to remind himself of just exactly why he was an orphan. 

Something about the other man made Alex feel calm, and effect he’d felt even as a child.

Alex doesn’t dare look at him, in case Imhotep will read the look on his face. He feels more like a child than ever. Instead, he decides to revive their argument about the ring. 

“It’s not  _ my _ ring,” he Alex insists. “It probably belonged to someone important. It should be either back in the tomb or on display somewhere.”

“It is a jewel,” Imhotep counters. “It should be on display on your body.”

Alex stares at the stone, weakening. He gives Imhotep a resentful look.

“You promise nothing bad will happen if I put it on?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“But how can you tell?”

“I can tell. Wear it.”

He takes a breath. Carefully lifts the ring out of its velvet holder, examining it for a moment, before slipping the band on to his ring finger. It fits perfectly. The world does not crumble, no visions stun him. He slips it off and on again several times with no issues. He relaxes.

He rests his head on his knees and closes his eyes, lulled by the fire and the occasional flicker as Imhotep turned a page. The wind is getting up, however, making him shiver, but not enough to make him move.

Imhotep moves to his side and draws an arm around him.

“Go inside if you are cold.”

Alex murmurs something incoherent. He knows he should. But he is so content here, especially now, with Imhotep holding him. He shifts slightly, embarrassed at the effect the contact has on his body.

“Be easy,” Imhotep tells him as he tenses. “I will not push you into anything.”

This helps.

“I want to sleep in your tent,” he blurts.

He had no idea why he suddenly wanted this, let alone why he said it, but Imhotep is unperturbed.

“Fine,” Imhotep replies neutrally. “Let us go.”

They leave the fire to burn the rest of the way down, leaving just enough light to create shadows in the inner wall of their tent. Alex does not speak again until his shoes are discarded, until he is in Imhotep’s arms in a nest of blankets he found, as the former mummy does not usually sleep.

“I feel so bad for being here,” he blurts, in the priest’s arms, not knowing where this sudden candour came from. He clings to Imhotep as he speaks. “It’s so twisted of me to come back. I shouldn’t - I shouldn’t want to be here.”

“I doubt things are as simple as that,” Imhotep says gently. 

They are quiet for a while. It feels good to be held. 

Then Imhotep tilts Alex’s chin up and kisses him.

“...mmph,” Alex pulls back. His heart is pounding wildly, his skin hot. He puts his hands out and feels the smooth muscles of Imhotep’s chest and shoulders, which makes it worse. “I can’t,” he says, as strong arms encircle him.

“Are you sure?”

The voice is teasing, and he nibbles at Alex’s lip when he doesn’t get a response. A hand trails up his thigh, teasing.

“Let me embrace you, my lovely one. I promise I will not hurt you.”

He closes his eyes and whimpers, but he wants it, he wants so badly to be held and wanted. He clings back.

And that is how the blankets and clothes are scattered, the tent flap drawn tight against the gentle music in the distance. He kneels over Imhotep’s lap, the other man’s hands knotted at the small of his back to keep him from overbalancing. 

“Tell me what you want,” Imhotep murmurs, and Alex shudders inside because he can’t bear to admit what he wants, wishes Imhotep would just take it from him so he wouldn’t have to agonise over it. 

“Can you…?”

Alex breaks off and arches into Imhotep, unable to stand it.

“...yes?” the other prompts, nuzzling him. There is a mocking lilt to his tone. “Tell me.” He accompanies his words with a little squeeze of a particularly sensitive area. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Alex gasps, overwhelmed with the different sensations. “Please - just - inside me -”

Imhotep pulls him in for a long, hard kiss. His first kiss since he was 18. Alex is almost dizzy with it. 

The pain is reassuring; Alex had been afraid Imhotep was manipulating his senses in some way, and the burn he feels ensures him that this is real, that he is fully present for every moment of it. Imhotep strokes along his arms and his sides, soothing him through it.

“N-no more,” he chokes as he comes down, raw and over sensitive, and Imhotep nods and holds him close.

“I am very sorry, Alex.”

That right there is the most unbelievable part of all.

-

The priest is still holding him when he wakes, even though he does not need sleep himself. He murmurs a greeting or endearment in his own language, that Alex cannot quite decipher. He does not know quite how he feels.

“Do not be so anxious, lovely one,” Imhotep says then, sensing his guilt.

Alex goes through that day in a haze.

While the others are eating, he decides to go for a walk. 

Water always makes him feel funny, always makes him think of his parents’ death, not to mention his own disloyalty, so he supposed he was punishing himself. After a moment’s hesitation, he takes off the ring and leaves it behind. He had heard Imhotep tell the others that they will be leaving a day early, and he knows it is because of him.

Alex had woken up feeling so safe, so happy and loved, and it was immediately swallowed by a sick stab of guilt. How could being with Imhotep make him so happy?

-

Returning from the tomb with the book, Imhotep is satisfied. He had been able to find the sarcophagus sooner than he anticipated, and now the last soul had been put to rest. They can move on, and this makes him glad. However wonderful last night may have been, Alex is still  unsettled here, and Imhotep is eager to move on.

He looks for the boy now, and someone tells him he is seeing to the camels. Imhotep goes to where the camels were hobbled, and Alex is not there. Frowning, he heads back towards their tent. He sees the jewellery box has been disturbed once again, opens it and sees that the ring has been returned. He knows then, somehow, but he remains calm. He heads to the waterfall, and finds no-one is there. The ring is on the ground, and he unthinkingly picks it up. It is still warm.

He should never have touched him. He should have stayed with him all day when he started acting strangely. He is too late, he has failed the boy. 

He stands there for a long time. He does not think of the book, or praying to the gods. He cannot think at all.

Lock-Nah comes to find him well after dark, and appears disturbed to see the priest staring trance-like into the water.

“My Lord?” he says uncertainly.

“The boy is gone.”

Lock-Nah understands at once. It does not bring him the glee he had so imagined.

“Perhaps he has only wandered off,” Lock-Nah ventures. “Perhaps he -”

“No.”

There is a finality to his words that cannot be offset. Lock-Nah bows his head.

“We will look for the body,” he says, thinking it is the kindest thing he can offer. Receiving no reply, he leaves his Lord alone.

-

At dawn, Lock-Nah and the others are waist deep in the water. He can already see the fruitlessness of their efforts. If the boy were to wash up at the bank, they would have found him easily. But he could have drifted anywhere by now. He could even be smashed against the rocks somewhere. They had no hope of getting near the waterfall itself.

Some of the others had given Lock-Nah an odd look when he gave his orders, even those who tolerated the boy as a child. Imhotep had remained in his tent, and seemed to have no interest in looking for the boy and reviving him. Lock-Nah himself does not know why he is here, and curses the boy and himself under his breath. He thinks though, that it is the right thing to at least try, for both his Lord and the boy.

-

In his tent, Imhotep is praying. He uses none of the formalities he has been taught, none of the elegant verses of worship, but rambles like a madman.

“...to please receive the boy with kindness and forgive him. Please see his goodness and guide him to his waiting family, keep him safe and loved, for he has suffered much, and I failed in my duty to repent to him. If he must suffer, please let me have his suffering instead, and spare him, for he is...”

After some time, a voice cuts through his consciousness.

_ The boy is between planes. _

Imhotep stiffens. He knows the voice, knows its meaning, but he dares not hope.

“My Lords, please advise me in how I can serve you. Is the boy struggling to find his way? May I speak to him from this world?”

_ The boy is between planes,  _ the voice repeats.  _ It is not his time. _

“He lives?”

_ No, but it is not his time. If you wish to retrieve him, you must go to him. _

“Where can I find him, my Lords?”

_ That is in your world, and for you to discover.  _

He does understand.

“Thank you, my Lords,” he breathes. “By glory of all Gods and Goddesses, I will find him, and give my thanks once he is restored.”

-

To Lock-Nah’s surprise, the priest joins them at sunset. He has discarded his robe and stands only in his loincloth, waist deep in the water.

“Lock-Nah,” he says quietly. “I will hold the waterfall, so you may look behind it.”

Lock-Nah stares in shock.  It is not that he doubts the Lord’s power. But surely, even his power was not so great to hold it for long. And if only one of them was able to recover the boy and get out of harm’s way, Imhotep would surely let the wave go and let it cascade over the rest of them who were remaining.

“You do not have to,” Imhotep says quietly, and Lock-Nah is quietly stunned by the humbleness of his request. “It is volunteers I require, for it is a perilous effort, even with my powers.”

Lock-Nah volunteers. Perhaps Imhotep knew he would. A few others do as well. Not the archeologists and Egyptologists, who expressed deep regret, but did not see the point in rising their lives to recover a body, or what was left of it. The ones who volunteer are the remaining cultists and guards from the old days, either out of loyalty or a small sense of duty to their young companion.

Imhotep sets his feet in the sand and raises his arms. With a roar, the waterfall is stopped and held mid-air. It is a spectacular sight, but no-one can still to marvel it. Behind the waterfall are black-wet rocks, misshapen and cragged with hidden caves and depths. The others on shore are spread out with binoculars, trying to help. The boy could have been washed away.

Lock-Nah finds him. He has to look for several moments before realising that what he sees had once been a person and, for a moment, he considers pretending he hadn’t seen anything at all. The boy’s bones and features are so misshapen he barely looks like a man. Half his face is smashed in. 

Deciding he can hardly make things worse, Lock-Nah awkwardly gets his arms around the boy and shouts out to the others. His mouth is set, his face hard.

At his call, the others begin a hasty retreat to the banks, seeing their Lord start to shake with the weight of the water. The suspended energy could only be held for so long, and it was building into a tidal wave that would crush all of them.

Imhotep is shaking under the pressure. Even those who waited on the shore are long gone. Lock-Nah is the last to leave the water, being the furthest into the cave, and Imhotep waits for the man to run past him for cover when he lets the water, when it crashes to cover all of the land.

-

When Alex wakes, he is in blankets in his tent, feeling only slightly cold. He senses Imhotep’s presence, and opens his eyes to locate him.

Watching him, the man immediately presses closer and strokes his hair.

“You are awake.”

Alex leans his head into him uncertainly. Something is not right, but he is not awake enough to make it out. He is not in pain, and he is not ill. He is not even uncomfortable. How long had he been here? Was this the morning after they had come together? It felt like years ago.

“I had the strangest dream,” he croaks out.

Imhotep smiles bitterly and looks away.

Alex sees and goes cold.

“It wasn’t a dream?”

“I do not know what you dreamt,” the man replies coolly.

Alex reaches out with an uncertain hand.

“Are you angry with me?”

“No.” The hand that grips his is warm and sure. “No.”

Rather than reassuring him, Alex feels his anxiety mount.

“Am I dead?”

“No.”

“I’m not in any pain. Am I numb?”

“No.” Imhotep trails his free hand over Alex’s cheek. “Do you feel numb?”

“No,” he says. “But I don’t understand.”

“It was not your time,” Imhotep tells him gently.

“I didn’t see my parents.”

“No,” Imhotep agrees. “They would not want to see you. You are not ready yet.”

“But how did I survive?”

“You didn’t.”

Alex tilts his head up.

“You brought me back?”

“Yes. With the help of the Gods and, I suspect, your parents from the other world.”

This silences him for a moment.

“Thank you.” His hand shakes in Imhotep’s. “I’m sorry.”

Imhotep moves to sooth him at once.

“Do not distress yourself, little one. I am only sorry that I drove you to it. I should not have pushed you.”

Alex clings to his hand like a child. It feels like a dream. Had he really jumped? Surely not. He remembers nothing. He feels like he has been in a coma, or under opium.

“Will the Gods punish me when I...when it is my time?” he ventures.

“I do not think so. Do not worry of such things. It will not be your time for many years.” He continues his slow stroking of Alex’s hair, soothing him by the minute. “Do you need anything?”

He tries to shake his head. He wants for nothing, feels completely cosy with no need for anything else, except perhaps more clarification, his his brain would only cooperate.

“I feel like...I can’t talk properly.”

“You are exhausted still,” Imhotep tells him. “Rest, and we will talk plenty as you recover.”

He shifts so his head is on Imhotep’s lap.

“By the way, you owe Lock-Nah great thanks,” Imhotep tells him as he settles.

“I do?”

“It was he who recovered your corpse. He began searching even without my instruction, and continued throughout the hottest time of the sun and into the evening.”

Alex flinched at the word corpse.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

Imhotep presses his hand.

“Sleep now.”

“You’re not angry?” he has to check one more time.

“How could I be angry, my dear? I am more glad than you know. Rest now.”

-

He passes several days like this in Imhotep’s tent, slowly recovering, taking food and drink. 

When he finally ventures out, Lock-Nah looks unnerved to see him, as if unsure what he is looking at.

“You look as if you’d seen a ghost,” Alex cracks weakly.

Lock-Nah snorts and precedes to mutter insults in Arabic.

“Imhotep says I owe you thanks,” Alex tells him tentatively.

“Hmm,” Lock-Nah says, impassive, clearly uninterested in grumbling or rubbing Alex’s nose in it.

Alex looks around them warily, where everyone seems to be busy and ignoring him. Half of them are gone, which Alex realises must be because of him, for putting their operations on hold for so long.

“Everyone must hate me,” he says out loud.

To his surprise, Lock-Nah laughs.

“Such a child you still are, to worry so of what others think,” he sneers.

Alex looks at him uncertainly.

“Other people are everything.”

“Not all of them,” he counters. 

He stalks off, leaving Alex and alone and confused.

He still sleeps with Imhotep, choosing not to go back to his own tent. He is strangely untraumatised by what happened, as if it had never happened, in fact. Just the thought of it makes him feel vaguely frightened. He knows he had looked off into the Thames, and even as a teenager, there had been a couple of times when he looked into waterfalls or on the tracks of a speeding train, but he never thought he would actually do it. Imhotep is the one who looks dark and troubled.

They walk arm in arm along the river bank under the stars, where the others would not venture in case of crocodiles. And Alex had to admit it felt wonderful, to feel so safe, to walk arm in arm with essentially a God. He remembers the couples he’d seen in London, how jealous he’d been, how lost and alone he’d felt. It was like a dream now. This land was so much more real than London ever was. 

“You should take your ring back,” Imhotep tells him that night. “You should never have taken it off.”

“A ring’s not going to protect from my own mistakes,” he points out. “But I might put it back on.”

Imhotep makes a little noise of satisfaction. He likes this small, small connection of their past lives, even though Alex would have been at least 10 years his junior, and they had never met.

“I think we will leave tomorrow,” Imhotep tells him, massaging his hand. “You are rested enough, and it will do you good to move about more.”

“OK,” he agrees. “Where are we going?”

“Hamunaptra.”

That was a change of plan. As far as Alex is aware, Imhotep had not returned to his old burial ground for a long time.

-

**I** mhotep requires no help this time - he knows exactly where he is going. Alex and about five other men follow him with trepidatious expressions. Imhotep was normally quite candid with Alex about where they were going and what they were doing, but he had become quieter and quieter when approaching his old home, not even answering his most trusted staff. 

Alex follows him while the others hang back, into the familiar chambers, even if there was little but dust left. 

“Imhotep,” Alex says, finally giving voice to his greatest fear. “You’re not here to bring her back, are you?”

Imhotep turns to answer, shudders when he finds Alex standing by the very same cat statue Anck Su Namun had draped herself over before they killed the pharaoh together, before his fate. After her suicide and the Pharoah’s death, he had heard from his priests how the room was torn apart, all of its items sent to languish with the dead.

“Don’t,” Imhotep says now.

“Don’t what?”

He comes forward and takes Alex by the arm, gently pulling him away.

“Oh,” Alex says, slightly confused. “Sorry.”

Imhotep releases him and turns away. He is not here to recall Anck Su Namun’s spirit. He is here to say goodbye to her, and to thank the Gods for their generosity, as promised. He does not understand how he has earned such mercy and such a gift from the Gods, but he is determined to earn it. His second love that he has let down, but perhaps the first did not count as it was not true. 

“There is something I must do alone,” he says then, turning back to the younger man. He kisses him on the forehead. “Wait for me outside.”

It is only then that Alex realises he is being dismissed.

“...OK?” he says warily. “But what is it you’re doing?”

“I will tell you another time.”

“Why?”

Imhotep smiles, and cups the back of his neck.

“Even now, you are the only one to challenge me.”

“Yeah, well, get used to it,” Alex counters. “What are you doing that you can’t tell me about?”

“It is nothing harmful.”

“But you can’t tell me?”

“Not yet. It is...personal.”

“Oh.”

Alex isn’t stupid. He knows whose tomb they are in. If Imhotep is not bringing her back to life, he will be paying homage to her in some way. Which he has every right to do. He had loved her for thousands of years, risked everything for her, so - 

Imhotep lifts his chin, disrupting his thoughts.

“You are worried,” Imhotep says, nuzzling him. “You need not be.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“I am not sure,” he says. “Tell the others they may rest.”

Something hardens inside Alex.

“I will. I’ll also tell them to lend me a camel so I can get to the nearest port.”

“What?” Imhotep looks at him like he has been slapped. “What are you saying?”

“What do you think? I don’t think I want to stick around as your consolation prize.

He tries to leave, but Imhotep grabs his arm hard enough to hurt, and Alex experiences a flicker of fear. In all the time in his care, Imhotep had never so much as raised his voice, but there was a first time for everything. But Imhotep only speaks quietly.

“You are not my consolation prize.”

“...OK,” Alex says, hoping it will make him let go. It doesn’t. 

“You are not. Never think that. You are everything to me.”

_ “OK,” _ Alex repeats, squirming. Imhotep releases him with a sigh. 

“I will return by nightfall, my little guide,” he says, letting his hand ghost Alex’s cheek a final time. “Please wait for me.”

Alex steps back from his hand, turns back to head out until he reaches the others, who look at him expectedly.

“He’s doing something, said he’ll be done by nightfall,” he says curtly. “And we can rest..”

He pushes past them out into the daylight. He will not go anywhere. It had been bravado talking down there. He will not leave unless Imhotep makes it explicitly clear that he wants him gone, and Alex doesn’t want to think about how that would make him feel. He starts preparing the camels’ feed for something to do. It is a long while before night fall.

-

The sun sets. He waits by the chamber until the sun is long gone, and he is forced to move back to the fire when it gets too cold.

“I don’t know what you’re worried about,” Lock-Nah remarks. “It’s not like anything can happen to him.”

Alex says nothing.

“He will have no way of knowing night has fallen,” another comforts him. “Time gets lost in those tombs.”

He stays awake long after they have all retired, poking at the fire dejectedly. He hugs his knees for warmth.

He loses all sense of time. He doesn’t lift his head because he doesn’t want to see if it is growing light, if he should be worried, if he should-

Someone is touching him then. Alex jerks his head up and Imhotep is there, enveloping him in his arms.

“You are very cold,” the other man murmurs.

“And you are very late,” he snaps back, letting himself be hugged nonetheless.

“I apologise,” he says. “Come, let us argue inside before you freeze.”

Alex allows the other to lead him into their tent, too relieved and too tired to really fight with him.

“Well, the world hasn’t ended, so I’m guessing whatever you did failed,” he snarks, burrowing into the blankets with his back to the other man.

“Is that what you think I was doing?” Imhotep says, pulling him into his arms.

“Well, if you’re doing something in an ancient tomb that I can’t know about, it can’t be anything good, can it?”

“I didn’t tell you because I was not sure what would happen, and I did not want you to worry. But all is well. I will tell you in the morning, when you are rested.”

“As opposed to telling me now, so I don’t have to keep worrying about it.”

“Trust me, Alex.”

Alex doesn’t trust him, but he is far too tired not to sleep.

-

He has all but forgotten their fight that morning, when he wakes in warm arms and a nest of blankets, cuddles without remembering. Remembers last night, feels vaguely irritated with himself for snuggling.

Imhotep brings tea. Sits up sleepily. And blinks. 

“You’re bleeding.”

Imhotep turns over his hand and looks at it.

“Oh, yes.” 

He calmly proceeds to clean and wrap it.

Alex gets out of bed to follow him, frowning.

“You’re  _ bleeding _ ,’ he repeats, as the penny slowly drops.

“Yes,” Imhotep says. He kneels by his side and draws him close, stroking his hair with his free hand. “Do not worry.”

“If you can bleed it means you can die.”

“Yes.”

Alex frowns against his chest, trying to understand.

“But why…?

“I no longer desire immortality. Wishing for godly things was wrong.  I have relinquished my powers and my immortality back to the Gods. I owed them my thanks, and I no longer have need for such things.”

And then he understands, understands what he had been doing why and it had been a secret. Part of him feels a spike of fear, as one of the most reassuring things about Imhotep was that there was no danger of losing him. But on the other hand, a plane that separated them had been removed. They would both need to eat and rest and keep warm. They would both age and die. 

“Do not look so fearful,” Imhotep tells him. “I will be careful.”

-

The next night, he wakes in Imhotep’s arms. He has done this before, of course, but the man was always thinking and waiting for him to awaken, sometimes reading or writing if he could do so without disturbing the young man in his arms. Now, though, Alex can feel Imhotep is asleep. He lies perfectly still, waiting for him to finally stir.

“How does it feel to sleep?” Alex murmurs, when movement finally comes, and he is pressed even closer.

“Wonderful,” Imhotep replies at once. “Of course, it will be a hindrance, but it is still a wonderful thing.”

Alex pushes back into him contentedly.

“So where’s next?”

“Cairo,” he answers. “We are all having a short holiday. We will sell the camels and put the travel things in storage.”

“Really?” Alex says. Even as a child, they had only rarely stayed in Inns or guesthouses.

“Yes. Unless you’d like to roll around in a tent all week.”

Alex reddens as part of him would just love to do that. He never told his parents, but he hated their house, it was so big and it always felt empty. He loved their trips not only for their adventures, but because they would spend weeks in tents and hotel-rooms, which were much cosier. Even when he was a student in England, he often thought of nights of talk and laughter around a campfire under the stars, and wondered vaguely why he’d come back to this pompous, polluted city.

They reach Cairo by nightfall. 

-

Imhotep leads him to a white house in a quiet street. A neighbor immediately comes out to greet Imhotep and they start chatting, so Alex goes inside without him. He finds the lights, and looks all around himself at the fireplace, the rugs and the beautiful furniture. Imhotep has had it well cared for, as there is no dust or dirt. He ventures upstairs and finds a bedroom with a balcony. He peers out, and can just make out the pyramids through the haze.  He can hear murmurs and noises from the rest of the village, the faint smell of spices. 

He stands at the foot of the stairs and hears Imhotep still talking, so decides to take a bath.

The taps make an odd noise of protest at first, but then the water flows hot and clear.

By the time he has dried himself and helped himself to a white robe on the door, he can hear Imhotep moving around downstairs.

“Hello,” he says as he comes down, a little self-consciously. “I used your bath. And your towel and your robe.”

“Good,” he says. “Have some tea.”

He has his tea while Imhotep is in the bath himself, taking it upstairs on to the balcony.

He is still staring when gentle footsteps approach, and arms settle around his waist.

“Do you like it?”

“Nng,” Alex replies intelligently. “This is your house?”

“Yes,” he says. “In between journeys. Although I have not used it in some years. I am glad it has been kept clean.”

“We need to buy food.”

“I have arranged it, we will get a delivery tomorrow. You can wait until then?”

“Yep.”

He is far too tired from the journey for anything, even eating, and it is wonderful to fall into that white bed.

It is dawn when he wakes, a smoky sunrise filtering the room in cold through the flimsy curtain. Slipping out of Imhotep’s arms, he pulls a robe on his shoulders and steps out on the balcony. He can see the pyramid tops on the distance through the mist, over the roofs of the village. It feels safe up so high, like a bird in a nest. Imhotep joins him, mirroring their position yesterday as he embraces Alex from behind. He is still naked. 

Later, Alex digs through Imhotep’s books. And there are a lot. Politics, history, languages, economics, geography...the former mummy clearly felt he still had a lot of catching up to do. The thought makes him smile. He continues to sift through the spines, until one title makes him stiffen.

He draws the book out.

_ Helping a Loved One through Bereavement. _

He stares at it, feeling hysteria build. He wants to laugh, but at the same time he’s furious, at the same time as he’s touched and grateful. He hears the bathroom door then, and roughly shoves the book back into place. He retreats to his side of the room and pulls out the clothes he had just folded, and begins to replace them again, making a show of looking busy. 

Imhotep brings him tea and watches him for a moment, bemused.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Alex says, not looking at him. 

He goes out soon after to clear his head, finds himself calming after a few minutes in the open air. 

He keeps wandering, making a few wrong turns and having to circle back on himself completely, before he finds it. His Dad’s orphanage. It looks like a wreck. He will donate to it. He will donate a lot, in fact. And he will buy plenty of clothes and food and books and medicine, in case any of the money was fiddled. He may be young, but he’s not stupid. Once he has sorted out his affairs in London, he will have plenty to donate and still be able to live off the interest.

London.

He needs to go back to take care of the house. It had been childish, he realises now, to come out here with nothing, without tying his loose ends, even if he had planned to die. Someone else could use that house. The money from the house and some of its possessions could go to the orphanage. Some can go to Lock-Nah as well, who had saved him despite everything.

Would he even be able to go back, with the war going on? Perhaps solicitors could sort it out for him, but he still thinks it is important for him to go back at least once. And after that, there is no need for him to ever return to England again.

The house had been unbearable to him. He had stayed in student accommodation in Cambridge, thinking it would make him feel less lonely, only it had served to underline his loneliness, being in the midst of somewhere he didn’t belong. All his classmates cared about was girls and drinking. He knows they all raised their eyebrows about him in private, some not even bothering to wait until his back was turned - he was the weird kid, the home-schooled orphan from a misunderstood country. Sometimes Alex would lose it when they sneered at him one time too many, would lash out, and his professors would be confirmed in their prejudice that he was feral, some kind of educated savage with an inheritance.

It is a relief to return to Imhotep’s arms.

Alex tries to take comfort he can from his presence. He is not going to get maudlin again, he’s not. 

He mentions the journey to London to Imhotep casually.

“I don’t suppose you could come?” Alex ventures.

“I do not think so,” he replies. “My duty is here in Egypt; the Gods have decided my purpose.”

“Best not try it then. You might crumble to dust at the border.”

“I will miss you.”

Alex pushes back into his arms more firmly. He will miss Imhotep too, God help him. 

-

But it was not as simple as that. He put off his plans more and more, until finally it became too late, and there was nothing for him to go home to salvage. 

He leans on their balcony with the newspaper, feeling numb. He would not have to go, and he would have enough money to last a lifetime from the insurance, enough to travel and donate to orphanages and do whatever he wanted to do. He would have been blown up himself if he had returned, even though the war was meant to be almost over. Lock-Nah had called him the cat with ten lives, and Alex supposes he was right. In a way, he is glad. But other than the few treasures he’d brought with him to Egypt, he’d lost everything. It was both a blessing and a curse. 

Imhotep comes looking for him and strokes his arms.

“Are you all right?”

“I used to live there,” he sighed, stabbing derelict bomb site photographed in the newspaper.

“I’m very sorry,” he says. “But I’m very glad you stayed here with me.”

Imhotep is caressing him now, distracting him. His caresses are sensual, massaging him in a way he hadn’t since before Alex tried to take his own life. 

“Stay with me,” he murmurs, and Alex knows what he means. He means stay forever, he means to be with him on every journey they make across Egypt, over every desert, into the depths of every tomb, and then to return to this snug little nest in between it all. And the thought doesn’t terrify him. In fact, it fills him with a rising feeling of warmth.


End file.
